We recognized our spiritual and human calling in a world that too often confuses difference with danger and identity with threat.
From early on, we learned what it means to move through systems shaped by homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, and transphobia — forces that attempt to shrink the soul and police the heart. These experiences are not distant or abstract; they are personal, embodied, and formative. They have shaped how we learned to survive, how we learned to speak, and ultimately, how we learned to love.
As openly gay men navigating traditional and cultural institutions — especially religious spaces — we have known what it means to feel like outsiders standing at the edge of sacred ground. Churches that preached grace sometimes practiced exclusion. Communities that spoke of love often offered silence, judgment, or conditional belonging. There were seasons when we felt alone, scared, and deeply fearful — fearful that our truth disqualified us from belonging, fearful that authenticity would cost us safety, leadership, or spiritual legitimacy. Like so many LGBTQ+ people, we were asked — subtly and overtly — to choose between who we are and where we belong.
But the soul does not forget its calling.
The deeper work — both spiritual and communal — has been to remember. To remember the original qualities of unconditional love. Love that does not bargain. Love that does not withhold. Love that does not demand conformity as the price of belonging. Through this remembering, our consciousness expanded. Awareness rose. And one truth became undeniable: God has no gender. Spirit has no preference. The Divine is not threatened by our diversity — it is revealed through it.
When love is filtered through fear, it becomes doctrine instead of liberation. Control instead of compassion. But when love is allowed to be love — fully, freely, unapologetically — it heals what shame and exclusion have fractured. Love is not heterosexual or homosexual. Love is not masculine or feminine. Love is not binary, fixed, or confined. Love is a living presence that moves as justice, dignity, mercy, and grace.
This is the heartbeat of what Gritz and Glitter has always stood for. Like the Ballroom Houses that formed chosen families when biological ones failed, our community understands that survival often begins with inclusion. In a world that tells queer and trans people — especially Black and Brown queer and trans people — that they must earn safety, love becomes both refuge and resistance. Love becomes a spiritual technology for survival.
We have witnessed how unconditional love raises consciousness — not just individually, but collectively. It shifts how we see God, how we see each other, and how we see ourselves. It reminds us that exclusion is not holy, silence is not sacred, and fear is not faith. True spirituality expands the circle. It does not guard the gate.
When we say Love is Love is Love. Period., we are not offering a slogan. We are making a spiritual declaration. We are affirming that every body is sacred. Every identity is worthy. Every expression of love grounded in consent, dignity, and truth belongs. This declaration refuses hierarchy. It dismantles binaries. It challenges traditions that have confused power with righteousness and control with morality.
Gritz and Glitter lives in this tension — holding the grit of lived truth and the glitter of divine possibility. It honors pain without being defined by it. It celebrates joy without denying struggle. It insists that spirituality must be lived, embodied, and inclusive — or it is incomplete.
We stand in this truth not in opposition to faith, but in devotion to it. A faith that recognizes love as the highest law. A faith that understands God’s nature as expansive, not restrictive. A faith that knows when any of us are denied belonging, the whole community is diminished.
Love is love is love. Period.
And in that truth, we claim our wholeness.
In that truth, we honor every path toward authenticity.
In that truth, we continue the work — visible, grounded, and free.
Terry Dyer, an award-winning author and activist, raises HIV/AIDS awareness, develops community programs and grants, fosters LGBTQ+ engagement, and engages in athletics. He wrote “Letters to a GAY BLACK BOY,” sparking discussions on racism, homophobia, mental health, family, and love.
Rev. Skip Jennings, an author, podcaster, transformational coach, and yoga/meditation teacher. He is a New Thought Minister and his notable work, “The Little Book for Transformation,” inspires change and living an authentic spiritual life.
